Key Issue: Humanitarian

Humanitarian

Working to improve communication flows between humanitarian organizations, local media and the people affected by natural and man-made crises.

In humanitarian crises, people affected by the unfolding events need more than physical necessities: they urgently need information.

Since the 2004 tsunami in South East Asia, Internews has played a pioneering role in the field of humanitarian communications, working closely with local media and aid agencies to ensure that people affected by disaster have access to timely, reliable information in languages they understand.

Internews Humanitarian Information Services (HIS) establishes two-way communication channels between local media, aid providers and local people. These feedback loops provide valuable data that reflects the information environment during crisis and response, identifies rumors and misinformation, and provides humanitarians with real time information about gaps and shortcomings in the response.

The Internews Humanitarian Project is a global leader in working with humanitarian organizations and local media in emergencies to develop cutting edge tools and strategies for improving communication flows between humanitarian organizations, local media and the people affected by the crisis.

“Lack of information can make people victims of disaster … people need information as much as water, food, medicine or shelter. Information can save lives.” — The International Committee of the Red Cross

Related Stories - Humanitarian

Donate on June 20 to double your impact.Since last year, when an influx of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees fled into Bangladesh, the humanitarian response has shown an increased progressive investment into communicating with affected communities. This is an important and welcome improvement in the delivery of humanitarian aid, but there is still very little communication that is produced with the Rohingya community rather than for them. Moreover, while many organisations extract information from the community and use that feedback to make their programs more responsive, there is still often a lack of communicating information gathered back to the community.
Internews’ Humanitarian Information Service aims to fill that gap. The project works with a team of 20 Rohingya refugees to not only collect community rumors, questions, and concerns, but also find answers to these questions and share them back with the community through a narrowcast program called ‘Bala-Bura.’ (Bala-Bura translates to “good-bad” in Rohingya, but the phrase is often used to ask “How are things – good or bad?”)
Community correspondent Nur listens to the concerns of a Rohingya woman. Credit: InternewsThe Bala-Bura team is a diverse group of Rohingya refugees. Half are women. Some team members arrived in Bangladesh last year and others have lived here for many years already. This diversity allows the team to connect to different parts of the community while also bringing their own experience and insights to the program.
“I have been working for several organizations for the last five years, and never received the amount of training I received from Internews.” – Nur, community correspondent
None of the Rohingya team members have ever done anything close to the work they are doing now. Some had not even switched on a computer before. However, all of them are extremely keen to learn after mostly having had limited or no access to education in the past. While this means the process to produce the first episode was long, the result is that the Rohingya team is extremely proud as they have been part of every step of this program.
The team goes into the community every day, even when monsoon rain is pouring down, stranding cars in mud. They walk to different parts of the refugee camps, asking open-ended questions and taking time to listen to what community members want to share. To collect feedback the team uses the ETC connect app, which allows for qualitative data collection. This approach means the team captures the priorities of the community rather than the priorities on the humanitarian agenda.
View over Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh. Credit InternewsValuing quality rather than quantity when it comes to talking to the community has been greatly appreciated. A Rohingya mother of seven recently told one of our team members. “I feel happy that you ask how I’m doing, I don’t get to share my thoughts and ideas often.”
“I never really thought about rumors; now I know how significant they can be to help the community” – Yousuf, community correspondent
Questions, concerns and rumors are what drives the Bala-Bura audio program. For every episode the Rohingya and Bangladeshi team discuss a long list of topics based on the collected community data. The first episode for instance, explained weather patterns in Bangladesh to address a rumor that suggested cyclones only happen in Bangladesh. The program always aims to give practical and actionable information that answers community questions. (Listen to the first and future episodes of Bala-Bura.)
While the Bala-Bura team in the camp is busy producing the next audio program, our data analyst collates and analyses not only our own data, but also partner data, such as from BRAC or Save the Children. This feedback analysis is then regularly published in Bangla and English for humanitarian decision makers as the joint “What Matters?” newsletter of Internews, BBC Media Action and TWB. (Read current and past issues of “What Matters?”)
“The community did not know much about a lot of the practical information that are crucial to live here” – Shibli, community correspondent
To share the Bala-Bura narrowcast, the team walks through the camps and sets up speakers in public places where people can gather and listen. This way the Bala-Bura team aims to go to the community rather than expecting the community to come to us. This also means that the audio can reach community members that aren’t able to walk far distances to other points of information.
Yakoub and Shekufa, two Bala-Bura team members, practice using audio recorders together. Credit: InternewsEvery time the audio is played in the community the Bala-Bura team collects feedback on what else listeners want to hear on the program. This way the Bala-Bura program ensures that its content and format is based on what the community find most relevant. This process is one of the key skills that the team have learned, or as Yakoub, one of the community correspondents puts it: “For the first time I learned how to help the community by collecting and providing correct and relevant information.”
Donate to Internews on World Refugee Day, June 20 through Global Giving's matching fund to double your impact!
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Bala-Bura is produced by Internews as part of the Common Service for Community Engagement and Accountability, in consortium with BBC Media Action and Translators without Borders. The work is being delivered in partnership with IOM, the UN migration agency, and is funded by the UK Department for International Development. Viviane Fluck is Humanitarian Project Lead with Internews in Bangladesh.
In Bangladesh, Internews also produces aradio and podcast programme under the HRSM project called “Shantir Lai Kotha Koi” (Talking Peace), which aims to build bridges between the host and refugee community (the programme airs every Monday 16.00h on Radio Naf, on http://internews.podbean.com as well as through listening groups.)
(Banner photo: Assistant producer Kaiser and community correspondent Yousuf carrying the Bala-Bura speaker off the main road, into the camp to set up a listening post for the community. Credit: Internews)

There’s a lot to discuss in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, where hundreds of thousands of minority Rohingya refugees have fled violence and persecution in Myanmar, only to live in an uneasy peace with the Bangladeshi host community. Rumors fly constantly in both communities – Rohingya fear further persecution and forced return to a land where their lives may be at risk again; Bangladeshis fear rising prices and competition for jobs and resources.
But last week on the radio, like on so many other radio shows around the world, the conversation turned, in part, to the weather.
Monsoon season has arrived, and the threat of severe weather affects everyone. Heavy rains and thunderstorms have swept parts of the country, with nearly 50 people killed in lightning strikes in April. No casualties have been reported in and around the refugee camps, but people living in makeshift huts on the hillside are particularly exposed. Nearly 200,000 Rohingyas and Bangladeshis in Ukhia are at risk of flooding in May, according to the local administration.
So emergency preparedness, and how the refugee and host communities can help each other during natural disasters, was the focus of the second episode of “Shantir Lai Kotha Koi,” (Talking Peace), a radio show produced by Internews in Cox’s Bazaar.
“Storms and floods affect refugees and villagers alike,” Muhammad Amin, a Rohingya, said on the show. “If our brothers in the villages stand beside us, help us with information about incoming cyclones and provide support as necessary, we would be very grateful to them.”
‘Flying news’
Airing in the regional Chatgaiya dialect on local FM stations Radio Naf and as a podcast, Talking Peace brings together members of the Bangladeshi and Rohingya community to discuss critical local issues that affect both communities.
A team of 12 community correspondents, evenly split between Rohingyas and Bangladeshis, and nearly half women, form the bulk of the small team that produces the show. The correspondents not only help with getting “man on the street” interviews, but they also track potentially destructive rumors in the camps and surrounding villages.
One of Internews’ community correspondents interviews a member of the host community. Credit Internews.A regular segment debunking rumors is called “Urainnya Khobor” – the literal translation is “flying news.”
In Talking Peace’s first episode, which focused on the very real risk of human trafficking in and around the camps, the “flying news” segment dispelled a myth that traffickers have a special mirror that causes children to faint.
Building Bridges
“The show provides lifesaving and life-enhancing information that will not only help people access services but also build bridges between the communities,” said Zain Mahmood, Internews project director in Bangladesh.
Tensions have risen sharply between the Rohingya and host communities in and around the camps in the past months, making Cox's Bazar a tinderbox. International aid groups have also come in for criticism, and occasionally violence, from locals who think they are being ignored in the aid effort.
“Talking Peace is tackling the elephant in the room and trying to defuse tensions by bringing the refugee and host communities together and appealing to a common humanity,” said Mahmood.
To extend the conversation, Internews has organized 15 listeners’ groups that discuss the show within the community, provide feedback, and share the audio content through Bluetooth, so that people who can’t access it by radio or by going to the podcast online can play it on their phones.
Balanced Reporting
The radio show is one part of Internews’ humanitarian information response in Bangladesh. Another focus is boosting the ability of Bangladesh’s local media to maintain professional standards while covering the Rohingya crisis particularly and conflict situations in general.
In April, 20 local journalists took part in a workshop on conflict-sensitive reporting, which included a reporting trip to a refugee camp, and will be followed by mentoring which supports the quality of their reporting over time.
Trainees on a field trip to Kutupalong refugee camp during the conflict sensitive journalism workshop. Credit InternewsThe journalists’ feedback was overwhelmingly positive. “The most useful training I’ve had in years,” wrote a senior reporter. “Opened my eyes to the media’s role in conflict,” said another.
The workshop, the first of six to be held in Dhaka, Chittagong and Cox’s Bazar, is part of Internews’ efforts to engage with and train Bangladeshi media organizations to report objectively on the Rohingya issue, avoid propagating rumors and generally play a more constructive role in the aid response.
“Local journalism has a very important role to play,” said Mahmood. “Negative perceptions can be stoked by inflammatory reporting in the local media. On the other hand, responsible reporting has the ability to build foundations for peace.”
Donate to get lifesaving information to Rohingya refugees.
More information on Internews' Rohingya project:
What Matters?: Humanitarian Feedback Bulletin for Communities Affected by the Rohingya Refugee Crisis
Flying News: Rohingya Response Rumour Tracking Newsletter
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Internews’ humanitarian reporting work in Bangladesh is supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Internews’ initial response in the region was supported by individual giving. Additional work in Bangladesh to support information flows in Rohingya and Bangladeshi communities is supported by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) in partnership with BBC Media Action.
(Banner photo: Internews’ community correspondents work on producing the radio and podcast show ‘Shantir Lai Kotha Koi’ or Talking Peace. Credit Internews)

From an accomplished mathematician who spent six years in exile in Siberia, to a princess of Kyiv who outsmarted the Emperor Constantin, to a young activist who fought for women’s rights to education and equality — these little-known women of Ukrainian history are brought to life in a new book – Girl Power: Little Stories of Big Acts – written by renowned Ukrainian authors Kateryna Babkina and Mark Livin and illustrated by Yulia Tveritina and Anna Sarvira.
The book is targeted to children in Ukraine who have been affected by the ongoing conflict. In particular, girls who are especially affected because of their unequal status in society and their sex. In conflict, women of all ages experience displacement, loss of home and property, loss or involuntary disappearance of close relatives, poverty and family separation and disintegration, and victimization through acts of murder, terrorism, torture, involuntary disappearance, sexual slavery, and rape.
Due to the conflict currently in Ukraine there are 1404 widows, 2220 women lost their daughters and sons, and 229,000 children are IDPs (internally displaced persons).
Girl Power: Little Stories of Big Acts is intended to empower girls from conflict-affected Ukraine by telling the stories (adapted biographies) of successful Ukrainian women who managed to develop their communities and overcome hardships, including those caused by conflict and displacement.
“It is truly cool that the book tells about the founder of a charitable fund, a volunteer, a female in the military – these are females from the new history of Ukraine and it is cool, they are already in the books,” says Lyudmila Galychyna, an internally displaced young woman who received a copy of the book.
The launch event of Girl Power: Little Stories of Big Acts (сила Дівчат: маленькі історії великих вчинків)“A lot of people fight for woman rights, but that isn’t that easy,” say the book’s authors.
“They are up against traditions and long years of discrimination, neglect of women’s rights, stereotypes, false traditions and judgments. This is the first book of stories about Ukrainian women who changed this world for the better despite the obstacles.”
Nataliya Kobrynska was a women’s rights activist and supported women writers.The book shows women in non-stereotypical roles (IT entrepreneurs, mathematicians, doctors, and soldiers, for example) and is designed for children to promote gender equality and to inspire those who have suffered and been displaced due to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
Girl Power: Little Stories of Big Acts (сила девуаt) is inspired by the Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls, a children's book packed with 100 bedtime stories about the life of 100 extraordinary women from the past and the present, illustrated by 60 female artists from all over the world.
Internews staff members, together with the authors and the publishing house, selected the women to profile for Girl Power based on certain criteria: that the women be in non-stereotypical roles and that they promote gender equality; some should be from the past and some should be currently living; and women who helped start the feminist movement in Ukraine should be included. If the woman was still alive, she was contacted to ask if she wanted to be a part of the book and to make sure the details of her life were accurate.
Investigative journalist Natalia Siedletska.One of the women featured in the book – Natalia Siedletska – is an investigative journalist who launched a popular TV program about political corruption and abuse. “I`m very much delighted to be included in a book,” she said. “In the world of unfair politics and corruption to receive such bright signs of support is priceless. It is a great honor and additional motivation for me!”
Iryna Halay, alpinist and the first Ukrainian woman to reach Mount Everest, at the presentation with the illustration of her from the book.Families at a presentation of the book in Kharkiv.The book, of which 5,000 copies have been printed so far, will be distributed to conflict-affected communities in Ukraine — to the school libraries of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, government-controlled areas, through humanitarian partners of the Internews project Strengthening Conflict-Affected Community Communication for IDPs, and directly to the families that were affected.
"I liked this book about famous Ukrainian women, who changed the world for better. As I'm very interested in history, I paid special attention to Anna Yaroslavna, the daughter of Yaroslav Mudryy, the Kiev prince. Anna became the queen of France. The fact that was the most interesting for me is that French people had been surprised she was able to read and write back at that time, because most of them could not.” – Hennadiy Bulava, a visitor for Kramatorsk-based library (Donetsk oblast, conflict zone)
The book was presented in Kyiv, Kramatorsk (Donetsk Oblast) and Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city just 40 kilometers from the Russian border. Kharkiv saw violent clashes between pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian groups.
Emma Andievska, writer and artistThe book was published in partnership with Knygolove Publishing house and financed by the Global Affairs Canada (GAC). Canadian Ambassador Roman Waschuk spoke at the book launch event.
“This book is important because it shows for boys and girls that if to reach their goals was possible for women in my country and in our circumstances, it can be possible for me as well.”
Canadian Ambassador Roman Waschuk is interviewed at the presentation by the top Ukrainian TV-channel 1+1.Read 5 of the Girl Power stories that have been translated to English from the book.

It’s been a harrowing six months since Hurricane Maria hit Freddie Rodriguez’s small town of Juana Díaz near Puerto Rico’s southern coast. An infection from an exposed nail in the storm’s rubble put Rodriguez in the hospital for a stretch. Eventually he returned home to find that a tree had crushed his roof. That’s when community news correspondent Nashaly Alvarado encountered Rodriguez. For the past few months she’s been collecting hurricane recovery news stories and sharing them through “Information as Aid,” a social media-based recovery-focused news feed.
Alvarado’s story about Rodriguez ended with a quote: “Lo unico que pido es ayuda para remover el arbol." (“The only thing I ask is help removing the tree.”) This hyperlocal story got more than a million views, and put a spotlight on the ongoing issues facing many Puerto Ricans as they fight their way back towards normalcy.
Rafael Torres read the story and, like many, responded with a comment on Facebook. Unlike all the other readers, Torres also showed up at Rodriguez’s home with a chainsaw. He and Rodriguez removed the tree and fixed his roof. An online story had turned into offline action.
Rafael Torres' image of a tree that fell on Freddie Rodriguez's house, before and after Rafael jumped in to help, prompted by a story on the Information as Aid news page.Community-led reporting
Journalist Justin Auciello was in San Juan when Maria hit; the hurricane left five feet of water in his house two blocks from the ocean. After securing a place nearby for him and his wife to stay, Auciello hit the streets of San Juan and rural areas surrounding the city, to see how people around the island were faring without electricity, water, and other basic resources. He also wanted to figure out how they were getting information about their situations. The answers became more dire as he got further from San Juan.
To document the situation, Auciello began working on an information ecosystem assessment with Internews. The resulting document showed a desperate need for recovery-focused news and information island-wide, and for ways for communities to share their circumstances and questions.
The ensuing Information as Aid project is a partnership between Nethope and Internews, managed by Auciello. After Maria struck, Nethope responded to provide online connectivity for organizations and isolated communities. Internews joined the effort to ensure that once people got back online, verified information about the response and recovery could be easily found.
This chart demonstrates the boosted (orange) and organic (blue) reach of the Information as Aid Facebook page during the first five weeks of the program. More than one million were reached daily through organic efforts during the last half of December. As of March, reach remains consistent, indicating a stable community and continuing major impact. Information as Aid publishes a variety of recovery news and information on a dedicated Facebook page, which has become a primary platform for more than a third of Puerto Rico’s three million residents. The unique service connects affected communities with responding organizations and volunteers, and provides a platform and amplification for the voices of affected community members.
Twelve local citizen journalists from around the island serve as the “eyes and ears” for island residents. These community correspondents were recruited and trained in basic newsgathering and community engagement techniques by the Information as Aid team, and they then began gathering information and producing reports. Their reports are first shared in a private Facebook group, where an editor reviews and offers suggestions. When ready, the posts are published to the public “Information as Aid - Puerto Rico” page.
Information as Aid Citizen Reporters practice interviewing skills at a training in San Juan.In just a few months, the Information as Aid team has reached nearly half of the population of Puerto Rico on Facebook (more than 1.5 million), and averages a reach of up to one million people each week.
Information as Aid readers are not just consumers of valuable recovery information – they are also participants. The page is a vibrant community of daily interactions and engagement. Posts are about everything from how to conserve water, to recovery messages from local mayors, to stories about community members looking for help to repair homes. 22 year-old correspondent Alvarado says this work has given her an opportunity to help her community recover. “I’m creating new experiences and creating new knowledge,” she said.
A posting for a legal clinic sponsored by Fundación Fondo de Acceso a la Justicia (Access to Justice Fund Foundation). Informaction as Aid developed a partnership with the foundation in late November to amplify the reach and impact of the organization's work. Coverage from rural correspondents has helped struggling families receive much needed attention and assistance. In one instance a citizen reporter heard from community members about a man who lost his house in the hurricane. He was living in his car, and was attacked and robbed one night. Community members who read Information as Aid’s reporting reached out to the man with food and clothing, and a social worker arranged with the island’s Department of Housing to provide him with temporary housing.
Auciello has previous experience in community collaboration and reporting in disaster situations. He led a massive community reporting and organizing effort in New Jersey that spanned Superstorm Sandy’s impact, response, and recovery. Justin’s hyperlocal news site Jersey Shore Hurricane News (JSHN) continues to provide “news you can use” related to the recovery along the Jersey shore, and also general information that helps local communities build up resilience. Through this work he has partnered with Internews’ Listening Post Collective to expand his audience reach.
Auciello is taking the JSHN experience and applying it to Puerto Rico. The objectives are enabling communities to get the right information at the right time, and providing community-generated data and news to guide targeted actions by local leaders and humanitarian actors.
“I know first-hand the desperation of looking for information during a disaster – how do I help my family, find drinking water, save my house from flooding?” Auciello said. “I never want people to feel forgotten or suffer for something so basic as lack of information.”
Auciello says the Information as Aid Puerto Rico news feed has more than just vital information, it’s also intended to instill some hope and inspiration for the millions of locals still figuring out their next steps post-Maria. For success, he recommends a balanced approach of hard news, soft news, actionable journalism, and some inspirational examples of recovery. The growing audience for his page suggests this formula is a successful, and needed, effort.
“Journalism ultimately should be about empowering people and providing a service. It’s incredibly vital to provide people with actionable information to make the right decision at the right time,” says Auciello.
(Banner photo: The Information as Aid Citizen Reporters team. Coverage from our rural correspondents has helped struggling families across Puerto Rico receive much needed attention and assistance.)

Reporter Lawi Weng was dismayed. Far in the north of his country, he had heard whispered, tens of thousands of minority Shan people were starving in camps where they had been herded when their homes were destroyed by fighting. Some had disappeared in mysterious circumstances. But at the time – in early 2017 – their stories were untold in the national media.
Weng knows something about refugees. He has been one himself. And if people were starving, he wanted to tell the world. His editors at Irawaddy, the online newspaper where he is a reporter, were sympathetic, but Weng knew Irrawaddy had limited resources and likely couldn’t support a reporting trip.
Weng went another way. With a reporting travel grant from Internews, Weng visited camps where mothers were rationing milk and families were down to their last stores of grains. The result of his trip was a three-part series on the camps in the village of Namtu - and the beginning of actions by the government to address the problems of neglect and corruption which have long plagued the camps.
“It is so important to report the stories of these ethnic conflicts from the perspective of the people who are caught up in them,” Weng said of his work, rare in a Burmese media environment that has typically rewarded reporters for covering national politics, not news from the hinterlands. “I wanted to help these people, and I also wanted to let the Burmese people and the international community know. Someone has to know or the fighting will never stop.”
In this country slowly emerging from a half century of military rule, still teeming with ethnic conflict, economic woes, and restrictions on freedom of speech, courageous young reporters like Weng have been bravely making a difference. Weng, the son of a farmer from the Mon ethnic group who fled to Thailand as a teenager, was taken in by Mon exile groups there and returned to his country in 2013.
“The country has been so poor, and so poorly governed, and the people deserve better lives, but their lives are not going to get better without real access to information,” said Michael Pan, Myanmar Country Director for Internews.
“Information is very important. We have a dark side here, a very dark side that has been underscored by the lack of understanding among peoples, among cultures, among ways of life. With understanding, with asking questions, with going out to report the real stories, you can solve problems. We have been sort of like a police state that is slowly transitioning and becoming a better society.”
Starting last summer, Weng himself faced severe penalties for his reporting. He and two other reporters were arrested and detained by the military in northern Shan State after reporting on a drug-burning ceremony in an area controlled by Ta'ang ethnic armed organization. They were ultimately charged with unlawful association, which Weng knew was unfair. “We were journalists, and we have to communicate with everyone as journalists.” Weng and his colleagues were released, with charges dropped, in September.
Journalists like Weng and his colleagues are forced to navigate shifting freedoms in Myanmar. Since 2012, when reformist governments began to lift restrictions on the press for the first time in a generation, more than half the country’s 2,000 or so independent journalists – and many of its leading reporters – have been trained by Internews in the elements, basic and sophisticated, of reporting. For a decade before, Internews helped fledgling Burmese journalists from offices it maintained across the border in Thailand, offering trainings in neighboring countries for reporters and would-be-journalists from Myanmar. Internews’ work is grounded in the belief that information is a root solution to development challenges, particularly in democratic reform and peace processes.
“Internews really played a very significant role in the emergence of independent media in Burma,” Pan said. “When it launched there was no press freedom at all, no independent journalists. It was a catalyst, and now we are seeing the fruit of our work in the reporting of reporters like Lawi Weng and others, writing stories that can have an impact on political discussions, that can shed light on the darkness, like the conditions within these camps.”
In Yangon, Internews has for the past six years trained journalists in a mock newsroom environment it calls Newslab. For several months, reporters work out of a simulated newsroom, conceiving, reporting, writing, and editing stories, all utilizing modern newspaper technology and cloud storage. Internews runs news conferences and holds off-the-record conversations with politicians, representatives of think tanks and nonprofits working on electoral issues. There is face-to-face coaching and mentoring. News outlets send staff to the training, and often publish the stories they produce.
“From early on here, we invested our efforts in mid-level journalists, in creating a cadre of reporters who are true professionals,” Pan said. “Now we are starting to see these professionals whom we have trained really populate the newsrooms.”
Newsrooms like that of Irawaddy, an online paper which had been published in exile for years but which is gaining respect and making a mark in Myanmar’s increasingly competitive and sophisticated media market, where nearly two dozen daily newspapers and 200 periodicals play off each other.
Or like the journalist based in Mandalay who received a grant from Internews to cover a measles outbreak in northwest Burma. Trainers from Internews worked with him to help him develop the story, and before long, the reporter was writing about an enterprising physician who was leading a public health initiative to combat infectious diseases.
The doctor won a humanitarian award from the local government and the reporter was honored with an award from a Yangon journalism organization for best feature on public health.
“The story was a perfect example of how journalism is supporting the democratic transition in the country,” Pan said. “It humanized the situation, it discussed larger issues like the public health budget. It touched people’s lives and it got the people working on the front lines of this issue deserved recognition.”
For Weng, 39, the impact of the support from Internews went far beyond one-time funding. It convinced his editors to let him pursue a beat focused on ethnic conflicts. That made him one of the few reporters in the country writing from that perspective. As a member of a minority group himself, Weng says he feels driven to tell such stories. He didn’t learn to speak Burmese along with the native Mon language until he was an adult, and long after he learned and began writing in English in Thailand.
“Most of the media, they are Burmese, they are not ethnic people and they don’t have a lot of experience around ethnic areas. They have never been there, they don’t know what’s going on and they may think, this is not important,” Weng said.
Today, Weng remains committed to reporting, but acknowledges the challenges he and others face. Asked if his arrest and detainment would change his reporting, Weng said, “I do not feel their action changed my journalism. But, my office does not want me to travel anymore as they feel I’m on a ‘blacklist.’ For myself, I will always try my best to do my report. But I am worried about no one will dare to do investigative reporting [anymore].
“Because of the Internews program, reporters like me and other ethnic reporters, we went to these communities and understand the situations. A good reporter has to travel a lot, and write what they have seen from their traveling.”
“That grant from Internews means that now I know the area, I know the ground. The next time I can report about refugees or fighting I can use that knowledge. And I will.”
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Brian Hanley is Internews Regional Director for Asia Programs. Internews’ NewsLab and travel grants for reporters have been supported by USAID.

Pah! Pah! Pah! The gunshots roared.
“Wee badilisha magazine! Change the magazine!” ordered the cop.
Pah! Pah! Pah! The police-issue G3 rifles spat in hair-splitting continuity. In the mayhem, the cop tells Ken Simiyu to not fear, to just keep on the ground, to stay still.
Ken Simiyu of Radio Akicha reported on peace talks between warring West Pokot and Turkana communities. During the talks in January 2016, in Lobei Kataruk, Turkana County where most people are armed, the participants were asked to lay their guns down as a sign of goodwill.Simiyu, a journalist with Akicha radio, which broadcasts in Turkana, the marginalized Kenyan county nestled 700km north of the capital Nairobi, lay on the ground next to police inspector Kipkorir Koech, whose index finger never left the trigger.
Something hit Simiyu, and he felt a burning sensation in his hands and face. He thought he was hit by a bandit’s bullet – they are sharpshooters and masters of camouflage.
“No worries, those are just cartridges,” Simiyu remembers Koech reassuring him.
Though this was not his first time caught in a shoot-out between police and the cattle rustlers and highway robbers who roam the dry and expansive county, Simiyu was very afraid. Nevertheless, he recorded audio of the shoot-out and a hazy video, a memento of a day in the life of a journalist in Turkana.
Simiyu had accompanied police from Lodwar, the administrative center of Turkana, as they escorted a truck loaded with goods to Kainuk, a place that is dangerous even by Turkana standards. The bandits had attacked travellers the night before and Simiyu was following the story when they too were attacked.
“In May 2015, I was caught in the melee in nearly the same spot. I had accompanied Turkana leaders. They were on a mission to quell disquiet between the Pokot and Turkana.”
The Pokot and the Turkana are neighbouring communities who have for ages been embroiled in armed raids on livestock. Kainuk strides the border of West Pokot and Turkana counties, and Simiyu says youths from West Pokot had blocked the road for close to a week. This road is a lifeline for both counties. Trucks which supply the dry region with food had been held up, and the food was rotting.
The leaders were hoping to peacefully negotiate. Instead they were met with unforgiving gunfire, but luckily this time no one was hurt.
Ken Akicha of Radio Akicha was accompanying the Catholic Nomadic Mission to Oropoi village at the border of Kenya and Uganda, Turkana County on May 2016 for a story on the devastating effects of tsetse fly when their truck got stuck in mud. A Catholic priest named Oropoi “the land of sorrows” due to its huge problems with children’s health.Reporting from a conflict zone
Tall, dark and thin like a rail, Simiyu is a self-motivated journalist, one of the few who work from Turkana. We met him in June during an Internews training of the Health Voices Amplified (HVA) journalism program on maternal and newborn health. Health journalism, or any other kind of journalism related to development, is non-existent here.
But there are stories to be told. Venturing out of Lodwar town, the terrain suddenly changes a few minutes out. Women, traditionally dressed, their necks overwhelmed by coloured beads, sit under tree shades next to their manyattas, traditional mud and dung-walled structures. The men are sprawled in shades, their heads resting on wooden ‘pillows,’ ekcholong, while children play, mostly naked.
Other children have distended tummies, rickety feet, red hair. At a media roundtable on nutrition organised by the Internews HVA project, Cynthia Lokidor, the Deputy County Nutrition Coordinator, said nearly one in four children under the age of five suffer the effects of malnutrition, and one in four has stunted growth. This rate of affliction, exacerbated by prolonged droughts, surpasses the World Health Organization’s emergency threshold of Global Acute Malnutrition.
If Turkana is one of the worst places to be a journalist, then it is a nightmare to be a mother here. It has a Maternal Mortality Ratio of 1594 deaths out of 100,000 births, much higher than the national average at 495 per 100,000 and almost at par with war-torn Somalia and Afghanistan.
Why is it so difficult to shine a light on these health crises? Apart from insecurity, there are myriad other challenges, including the terrain. Driving a short distance from Lodwar town, suddenly the tarmac road becomes an unpaved road, then a dusty path as you hit what resembles a desert. During the dry season, cars get stuck in sand. When it rains, it pours. Rivers suddenly sprout where only dust existed.
Reporters would need to hire a four-wheel drive and police escort for $150 daily. Most journalists here are freelancers and contributors earning less than $150 a month. The stories from the interior only see the light of day when a journalist from Nairobi or from global media dares to travel here. The local reporters call them "helicopter journalists."
Says Peter Warutumo of NTV, “They jet in and out, doing stories in a hurry; oblivious that most of these stories are untouchable [locally].”
Hostility from politicians and other interest groups threaten local reporters. As a motorbike taxi rider recently told this writer, huku hamna sheria – this is a lawless jungle – and there can be consequences for angering the wrong person, as Joan Letting found out.
Letting, a young and talented Kenyan journalist, recently reported a story for Kenya’s The Standard newspaper, the country’s second-largest daily publication, on oil and gas. Kenya struck black gold in 2011 in Turkana. Naturally the locals want to benefit from the find, and politicians have moved in to curry mileage with their followers. Letting revealed that two opposing leaders differ on the percentage of the spoils which the Turkana County should get from the sale of oil.
“One of the camps was not happy. Someone told me I had been discussed adversely in a high-level meeting. I was told to ship out, that I was marked.”
Letting left. She now reports from Eldoret, 400 kilometres away. If there is an important event to be covered in Turkana, she travels at night, hastily gathers the story and then retreats.
Like Simiyu, most of the journalists in Turkana come originally from other counties. Pauline Muthoni, a radio host with local radio station Ekeyekon is from Lamu, a coastal county almost 1000km from Turkana. She attended college in Eldoret and came here as an intern.
“You know in Kenya, getting an internship has become as hard as getting a job. But because no one dares come here, there are opportunities.” She bussed in with several other adventurous college mates two years ago. The others did not last.
A few soldier on, like Simiyu, now trained, increasingly telling investigative stories about health issues. This is his eighth year here, and with a young family and a commitment to telling stories that need to be told, he doesn’t plan to leave.
. . .
Kiundu Waweru is a health media trainer with Internews in Kenya. Internews’ current health reporting work in Kenya, Health Voices Amplified, is supported by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID). Ken Simiyu is one of the journalists trained under the project on maternal and newborn health in Turkana and he has been filing in-depth radio programs on the same with support from Internews. The project also has trained and mentors journalists in Bungoma County, besides building the capacity of DFID communication officers and county health officials in Turkana, Nairobi and Bungoma.
(Banner photo: Ken Simiyu of Radio Akicha, left with camera, is joined by other journalists working out of Turkana, Sammy Lutta of Nation, front, and Emmanuel Cheboit of Citizen TV. They were covering the Red Cross as it donated food to drought stricken Kapedo residents on January 1, 2017. )

(This article originally appeared on The Listening Post Collective's blog.)
At the bar El Local in San Juan, Puerto Rico, an entire wall is dedicated to a public chatroom where people in the community can leave each other messages, get updated recovery information, find a tarp for a roof and other relief items, or access stress relieving events like yoga classes. “We call it the analog chatroom — ‘in your FACEbook’ — a system to communicate with your friends,” a volunteer told us. The El Local public chatroom meets the information needs of the community members by simply providing a wall for them to share information and communicate with each other. There’s also a calendar where residents can sign up to volunteer to cook meals for local families.
El Local Bar and relief center in San Juan, Puerto Rico — Justin AucielloIn an effort to understand people’s information sharing innovations and ongoing needs, the Listening Post Collective (LPC) and its parent organization Internews conducted an information ecosystem assessment among communities in Puerto Rico impacted by Hurricane Maria.
We spent a week talking to residents, government officials, local media, humanitarian actors, and local businesses, both in San Juan and in more rural parts of Puerto Rico. Our aim was to better understand the physical, institutional, and social infrastructure of the local media. We also focused on communities’ recovery-related questions; the most effective means of sharing information; what questions communities have related to recovery; what the most effective forms of sharing information with communities are; which local media outlets are most successful in reaching communities with relevant recovery information; and how government officials and NGOs are communicating with affected populations.
We learned that, while life inside San Juan city limits is nowhere near back to normal, people are beginning to have consistent access to information tools like internet, cellphones, daily newspapers and radio. In the rural areas, however, people are still in the dark — both literally and figuratively. They rely on word of mouth from friends and neighbors, and the few radio stations that were able to get back on air after the storm.
Key findings
In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, Puerto Ricans have been relying on a variety of sources to stay informed as they begin their recovery efforts.
Newspapers: People in and around the capital, San Juan, have mostly had access to physical copies of the island’s main newspaper El Nuevo Día. The outlet did not charge customers for papers directly after the storm, although it has since returned to charging.
Radio stations: In rural areas, where total blackouts continue, functioning radio stations have been essential to getting locals information related to their situations. Beatriz Archilla, head of AM radio station WALO located on the eastern coast of Puerto Rico, says 90% of her programming is now recovery related. She’s been reliant on local government officials stopping by the radio station to share updates on basic services like water, electricity, schools, and roads.
Rural residents like Maritza Lopez rely on a battery operated radios to listen to local stations like WALO. Lopez lives in Corozal, southwest of San Juan. The roof and top floor of her house collapsed during the storm, and she and her family have been living in what’s left of the home for more than a month, with little food and no potable water. The closest store is 25 minutes away via storm-damaged mountain roads, and her family and neighbors haven’t seen any relief services as of the last week of October. In addition to the battery operated radio, the Lopez family relies even more importantly on neighbors to stay informed about what’s happening on the rest of the island.
Word of mouth: The most prolific information source for both urban and rural residents of Puerto Rico has undeniably been word of mouth. Ada Monzon, a Puerto Rican TV, radio, and internet reporter, has been getting out into rural areas to assess people’s ongoing problems. She says in many areas mayors are the only ones with access to official updates on recovery efforts, and they are spreading that news one person at a time. Monzon also says even the offline information channels have been difficult to access for many families. “They have radios, but sometimes they don’t have batteries, it’s very difficult for the flow of information at this point,” she said.
Monzon says as a reporter it’s tough to get the full story of the impact of Maria and the recovery because so many Puerto Ricans are still cut off from sharing what they know. “The history we are writing about Maria will be completed when we all have communications,” she said.
Word of mouth might seem like a step back for more modern parts of Puerto Rico, but in some other communities, it’s business as usual. In La Perla, an isolated, impoverished neighborhood in San Juan, locals said they’re relying heavily on hearing news from neighbors at the store and other hangouts. An early October NPR broadcast reported that someone from La Perla had written on a plywood board, “SOS. We need water. We need everything.”
On-line: The Puerto Rican central government is releasing the most updated estimates of when important services will be back online via pr.gov and status.pr. ReliefWeb, the global humanitarian resource website, is also sharing regular updates related to recovery efforts. These sites are of course not directly available to people in areas without functioning internet and cell service.
Grassroots: Some of the most effective information channels in post-Maria Puerto Rico have been largely organic endeavors. Here’s a list of a few of them:
Municipal Runners: Mayors and local government in rural areas have been the main organic channels between residents and the capital, where much of the official information exists. Some of that information sharing has happened via satellite phone and wifi access points provided by humanitarian organizations. We also heard from sources that local mayors are relying on “runners,” people who are able to go back and forth from San Juan to speak with Puerto Rican government officials, FEMA, and NGOs and bring that information back to share with community members.
Tumba Cocos: Some local governments in rural areas are using trucks with large speakers to share important recovery information. Popular for political campaigns, these vehicles with tumba cocos (election speakers) are passing through neighborhoods playing messages about aid distribution locations.
Ham Radio: Puerto Rican physics professor, Oscar Resto, has been leading an ad hoc team of Ham Radio operators to help FEMA, the National Guard and Puerto Rican government officials connect with each other throughout the island. Resto said his team was especially active in the immediate aftermath of the storm, when almost the entire telecom system on the island was down. His services are becoming less needed as more formal communication channels return.
Fliers, Bulletin Boards, and Posters: One of the more consistent attempts to share information about recovery has been through community posters, bulletin boards, and fliers. The Contemporary Art Museum in San Juan began distributing fliers to different neighborhoods in the capital’s Santurce area offering help filling out FEMA paperwork. The flier lists all the necessary documents people need in order to file their recovery claims.
Government agencies have been distributing fliers around San Juan in Spanish from the CDC related to public health and specific things parents can do to ensure their families don’t get sick in the post-hurricane environment.
Carla Miranda, who works for the Rincón Beer Company Relief Center, is leading a local relief effort in the western coastal area. Her volunteer team started out by printing fliers with basic recovery information in both English and Spanish and going door to door to establish buy-in from communities. Miranda says her team also asked people to indicate their assistance needs by putting a yellow or red flag or shirt outside their door.
Bulletin boards off rural roads in the mountainous parts of the island are being used to update residents on what local businesses are up and running. Southwest of San Juan in the Corozal area a community billboard had fliers up letting people know a local pediatrician was available, a local restaurant was open, and a Head-Start center was starting again.
Tech: A variety of tech solutions have been offered to try and get people consistent communication capabilities. Google is sending balloons that are meant to give people in rural areas internet signals they can use to go online, a Facebook “connectivity team” was sent to Puerto Rico to deliver emergency telecommunications assistance, and Nethope’s Emergency Response Teamand the Information Technology Disaster Resource Center are on the ground restoring connectivity. Thor Nolen of Information Technology Disaster Resource Center told us that his team is assisting with establishing communications at health care facilities. The largest cable provider in Puerto Rico is establishing a “wi-fi” tour through December where they travel to municipal plazas around the island with a satellite internet device.
Javier Malavé, a San Juan based tech entrepreneur, is deploying mesh SMS networks in order to re-establish cell-phone access in some parts of Puerto Rico. His idea is to deploy solar-powered transmitters mounted on the top of buildings that will enable people to communicate via SMS. “You can drop them like bread crumbs and create a network trail,” he said.
Malavé’s plan is to establish SMS capacity in more than a dozen remote areas. His initial goal is to enable people to connect with family and also get recovery information from officials. “It creates a lot of stress not knowing and just waiting. There’s a lot of emotional stress. Just that little bit of a text message helps people stay grounded,” Malavé said.
Diaspora: One of the best ways for people in Puerto Rico to get information about their specific situations has been from the massive diaspora community in the U.S. An example is Angie Lamoli Silvestry, who is originally from Cabo Rojo, but now lives in New Orleans, where she experienced Hurricane Katrina more than a decade ago. Silvestry has been using that disaster experience to share tips and information with her relatives stuck on the island, researching recovery assistance online, and relaying that information as best she can back to her family in Cabo Rojo. She says she’s also trying to help counterbalance rumors her family is hearing about things like a cholera epidemic; help them locate basic items like bug-spray; and just be there to talk to them when cell service permits.
Silvestry also told the story of her 90-year-old uncle who was stuck in his home in Cabo Rojo and ran out of water. Luckily he had a functioning landline and was able to call her. Through her online research Silvestry was able to find a water distribution site just two blocks from his house.
Information needs and gaps: The initial rapid-response to Hurricane Maria is over, but much of the island is still waiting for consistent updates regarding basic resources like drinking water, electricity, phone service, tarps to cover damaged roofs, and more. Some of these questions will get answered in the near future, but others will continue to be asked for a long time, as community members head into a second month without consistent work and income, living in homes that remain beyond repair, and increasingly in need of psychosocial resources to help cope with the ongoing difficulties brought by the storm.
Carla Miranda, who helped set up a relief center in Rincón, said most people in rural areas start the morning wondering, “where am I going to find water? Food? Money? A new job?” Miranda said families in rural areas are desperate for water to drink, to wash clothes in, and for other essential activities.
Local reporter Ada Monzon said the potential for misinformation has been a real concern when it comes to recovery details due to word of mouth and no concrete and regular distribution system. Finding out valuable information in rural areas “is about who you know,” she said. For people that live far from aid distribution points, where food and water deliveries are irregular and where many have limited money to pay for gas, it’s a huge issue to have no or inconsistent information about resource access.
AM radio broadcaster Beatriz Archilla says most of the questions she’s getting from her audience revolve around when people will get basic water and electricity services back — “news you can use.” She says the other major information gap is people want to know how and when they can start the process of applying for recovery assistance with FEMA.
People in rural areas also have very little information about who is providing what assistance, when assistance providers are coming, and who they can connect with for specific needs. Ricardo Latimer has been helping the local NGOs Foundation for Puerto Rico and ConPRmetidos deliver food, water, and supplies to isolated areas. He says many of the residents he’s interacted with are completely in the dark about what kinds of help are available and when they might arrive. He said he’s often greeted with, “who are you and what do you have?” But Latimer said there are some information flow bright spots. In some neighborhoods in Aibonito, a mountain town that registers the highest elevation in Puerto Rico, he said tumba cococs were “blasting to the people to not drink from water streams, not shower in them, not wash their clothing because of bacteria and water sources.”
Trust: Initial research indicated that information passed on from family (including diaspora), friends, and neighbors during this recovery period is the most trusted source news. People are also inclined to trust what information they are getting from local broadcast media, and in San Juan, El Nuevo Día newspaper.
During normal times residents indicated they are less likely to put trust in information shared by local officials, because of a culture of corruption on the island. But because of the relative isolation people outside of San Juan have found themselves in, many have been forced to rely more heavily on local mayors and other municipality officials for news and information.
One example of trust being built up over time is San Juan’s Museum of Contemporary Art which has spent the past four years offering community programs to some of the neighborhoods in their area. When the storm hit residents already viewed the museum as an essential resource center, and stopped by to see what relief and recovery efforts were happening. Museum director Marianne Ramírez has offered everything from food to art classes for kids whose schools haven’t reopened. “We have been in constant communication [with the nearby neighborhoods]. We are also very respectful with them. It’s a working relationship,” she said. “It’s really very, very special.”
Local Voices: Despite having experienced a major disaster that upended homes, jobs, and families, many residents around Puerto Rico have been quick to engage in their own relief and recovery effort, not waiting for a more formal aid response. Because many communities are cut off from normal communication channels, those stories have not readily gotten out. Locals also have struggled to voice their shifting needs and to get questions to officials in San Juan who might have answers.
We surveyed communities in neighborhoods around San Juan and in the rural areas of Corozal, Mayagüez and Toa Alta about their information needs, and what they themselves are experiencing post-Maria.
Based on mixture of formal paper surveys and informal conversations, Puerto Ricans told us they were getting information mostly from the radio, word of mouth, newspapers and some social media; but also SMS, TV (satellite), newspapers, and messaging apps.
Residents told us that their information listening posts they’ve relied on after the storm include community recovery distribution centers, longer than usual lines in grocery stores and gas stations, plazas, parks, and any restaurants that have managed to re-open. A group of people we surveyed hanging outside a closed San Juan restaurant in the dark said information flow has been very organic, more than usual. “No hay area especifica, simplemente nos hablamos entre los vecinos cuando nos encontramos (there’s no specific area, simply neighbors talk with each other when we meet).” They said that whomever is getting the best recovery information shares it with friends and neighbors.
We also heard from respondents that the topics most on their mind relate to when utilities and telecommunications are returning in full. Some of the questions people shared regarding recovery information included, “how’s the progress going? How are locations outside the metro area? Where are the distribution centers? Where can I buy a generator? How come the help isn’t getting here?”
People told us the best ways to get them news were radio, some kind of verbal announcements, WhatsApp, phone calls, and Facebook messenger.
One of the people we spoke to in length, diaspora member Angie Lamoli Silvestry, shared a list of suggestions she had for how best to connect local residents to recovery information.
Focus on specific areas on the island to create better information flow.
Create centralized information spots in plazas, bulletin boards, live announcements, wi-fi access — everyone knows where it is.
Have teams go out to tell neighborhood residents to come to plaza for information aid including, WIFI, FEMA forms, basic recovery info sheets.
Recruit volunteers! People want to help. Physically go to fraternal orgs/churches to recruit.
Many municipalities have a Facebook page. Sart getting them to post a regular recovery news update.
Tumba cocos (election speakers). Get a truck with big speakers to drive through neighborhoods with recovery information and fliers.
Activate mayors in rural areas as information hubs. Have them set up daily recovery information updates in the plazas.
Methodology: Making sense of the inevitable information chaos in a crisis starts by listening to the affected population. It is critical to find out what information people need and what they are not getting. A parallel track of inquiry examines the local context, what we call the information ecosystem. This local ecosystem will have its own particular nuances, strengths and weaknesses. And perhaps most importantly, its areas of trust and influence.
The information ecosystem is composed of the physical, social and institutional infrastructures that support information production and flow, including media outlets, government agencies, community groups, and local organic news sharing. It includes the information needs and gaps experienced by local residents in both an immediate and ongoing context, and the topics that are of primary interest. The ecosystem also considers where a community’s trust lies in terms of their ability to ask questions and get answers and information regarding the issues impacting their day to day existence.
The Internews/LPC information ecosystem assessment in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico included:
A one-week on the ground assessment done by LPC partner Justin Auciello, which included visits to San Juan, Corozal, Mayagüez and Toa Alta
Interviews with local media, NGOs, government officials and technologists
Discussions with Puerto Ricans affected by Hurricane Maria
Visiting community gathering places and observing how people share information
Desk research of the Puerto Rican media landscape
Monitoring media coverage of major international news sites and local Puerto Rican sites
Formal Information Needs Surveys with local communities
Collaboration with the INGO, Global Communities, who included information needs questions in a recovery survey it conducted, including what level of trust people had with the information they were getting about Maria recovery.
Conclusion: Based on our field research over the past few weeks it’s clear that, like clean water, electricity, housing, and other essential resources, information is desperately needed as part of the recovery efforts in Puerto Rico. Even more, a two-way communication strategy is needed that will enable affected communities to both get ‘news they can use’ related to their recovery, and also share the things they are seeing and experiencing as they piece their neighborhoods back together. People have specific information needs depending on where in Puerto Rico they are located, and the channels for reaching them also vary. The post-Maria realities across the island will continue to require a variety of news sharing approaches to ensure recovery information gets to residents in the months ahead.
. . .
Jesse Hardman of Internews' Listening Post Collective is a journalist, journalism professor, and international media developer.
(Banner photo: The community message board at El Local in San Juan, Puerto Rico —by Justin Auciello)

Children in parts of eastern Ukraine have known war for most of their lives. But their experiences are not widely understood across the country.
Volunteer Olena Rozvadovska, former spokesperson for the Ukrainian President’s Ombudsman for Children’s Rights, abandoned her life in Kyiv to work closely with these children.
“You see,” Olena explains, “In 10 years we will have a generation of Ukrainians who have grown up during war and whom no one else in the country will understand. One girl asked me where I hide during bombardments. I said ‘Nowhere, my city is never bombarded.’ She was very surprised and asked, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘Because war is not everywhere.’”
To tell the story of Olena and the children she cares for in conflict-torn Donestk and Luhansk oblast, journalist Lesia Ganzha took a unique approach.
Her reporting covers Olena’s experiences with a girl with cerebral palsy living on the frontline, a boy who lost his fingers to a bomb explosion, and children who are neglected by parents with drinking problems. Lesia chose these topics to show the harm war causes children, and the ways Ukrainian society — primarily volunteers — try to deal with this tragic situation.
Telling these stories is one thing — but showing them would be quite another.
“Kids’ photos are quite a sensitive thing. Journalists need to have parents` permission to use those,” said Lesia. “But I wrote about kids whose parents are alcohol dependent, kids who are otherwise vulnerable. Getting permission for these images might be difficult, and might even put the kids at further risk.”
A partnership with graphic journalist Dan Archer was the answer. An American, Dan had previously worked to tell the story of Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan Revolution, in connection with Ukrainian journalist Anastasiya Vlasova, and focuses his work on social justice topics. Archer was eager to be involved.
“I really appreciated how the focus of the narrative was on the resilience of the characters and not the nature of the conflict and concomitant violence. My respect and admiration for both Lena and the families she’s working with is enormous.”
Dan’s panels, illustrating Lesia’s reporting on Olena and the children, solved the problem of identity protection. They also offer a new way for readers to understand the stories.
“Graphic journalism gives reader a unique way to inhabit some of the moments that comprise a story,” said Dan. “The combination of words and text builds up a series of snapshots in the reader’s mind that affords them a greater ability to identify with the characters involved, and inhabit the spaces that they do.”
“Dan’s pictures are a good way to expand the audience,” said Lesia. “I thought that seeing illustrations of everyday life of the kids living on the frontline, the volunteering of Olena and the ways she deals with the problems may be interesting for national and international audiences.”
“I also think that the use of hand drawn artwork works well with the nature of Lena’s work in the field: carefully crafted, bespoke and produced with a personal touch throughout,” agreed Dan. “I think the medium would also appeal to the children involved, not to mention Lena herself, who might get a kick out of seeing their own drawn likenesses.”
Online newspaper Ukrainska Pravda is publishing the three-story series in September.
Read Story 1 in English; Story 2 in English and Ukrainian.
. . .
Lesia and Dan’s reporting was made possible through an Internews small grants program, with funding support from Global Affairs Canada. Wayne Sharpe is Internews Country Director in Ukraine.
(Banner photo: Journalist Lesia Ganzha in Popasna, Luhansk oblast, Ukraine. Photo courtesy of Lesia Ganzha)

Andrea Panico isn’t getting much sleep. He takes my call at 9.30pm and he still has a long night ahead of him. By day, the We World team leader in Ventimiglia, Italy is attending a crisis management course and most nights he is out in the streets of the town from late at night until the early hours of the morning – talking to refugees and migrants.
“The nights are the most dangerous for them,” he explains. “There are so many children alone here, many of them younger than 18. The official shelters are only for families and unaccompanied children up to 14, so the older children don’t know where to go. On the street, bad things can happen to them, especially at night – people come looking for them for sex, they give them a few pennies or some food. We see that one of the best things we can do for them is to talk and listen, hear their problems, answer their questions, give them advice about where to go, what to do to stay safe, to find food and shelter. We try to find out if they know where their families may be and help them figure out what their legal options are for staying in Italy or moving on.”
Andrea Panico, center, works to provide information for refugees and migrants in Italy. Credit: Andrea PanicoVentimiglia, a picturesque coastal town close to the Italian border with France has seen a stream of thousands of migrants since 2014. Since the closure of the Greek border in April last year, the numbers arriving in Italy have swelled. Syrian refugees, Afghans, Iraqis, Pakistanis, Nigerians, South Sudanese and Somalis are amongst those who have scrambled, exhausted and traumatized, on to Ventimiglia’s rocky coastline. The horrors of their journey are hard to hear; some have been on the move for months and even years, surviving abduction, trafficking, rape, arrest, extortion, captivity and other abuses along the way. “For every thousand people who make it here, another five thousand die in Libya” said one man interviewed by Internews.
An Italian Red Cross Center is one of the only official shelters in town. It houses 300 people, but only admits people over the age of 18. The church of St. Antony has opened its doors; up to 100 people sleep there each night, but preference is given to families, and when the church is full no more are admitted. “That means that hundreds are sleeping under the bridge every night,” says Andrea, “and half of them are kids under 18.” Most don’t stay long in Ventimiglia – they are determined to get to France, Germany or England where they think life will be better, but they know little of what awaits them there either. “We let them know that there are opportunities here in Italy for them – they could even go to school here,” says Andrea. “But many times they don’t listen, or don’t believe, they are just pushing on because they have heard stories that conditions are better there than here. We try to give them the correct information about their rights and international protection – trying to cross the border will put them in more danger.”
Credit: Andrea PanicoI am amazed when Andrea tells me that he only has one volunteer helping him reach out to migrants and refugees, and some nights he doesn’t even have a translator. “Sometimes we have volunteer translators for Arabic and Farsi, some of the migrants speak French – and I have a little French.” I suddenly understand much more vividly the need for the Web Radio that he and I have been speaking about launching. “We would be able to reach so many more people!” Andrea says. “If we can put speakers and modems under the bridge, at the church, at the train station, the bus station and at the Red Cross Center – we would be able to inform people when places open up at the shelters, let them know about food, clothes and other services, warn them about dangers … we could also bring them news from their home countries and talk about important policy and legal issues that affect them.”
What will he call his mini radio station? “Yalla Yalla! It means in Arabic ‘Come On!’ or ‘Let’s Go!’” His enthusiasm is infectious. We start talking about the possibilities the Web Radio will create – and we talk about Internews’ experience running the web-based platform “News That Moves,” that offered information and answered questions for refugees in Greece. Andrea tells me he also used to work in Greece. “We checked News That Moves” every day so we could share that information with refugees,” he says. With translation help, Yalla Yalla radio could spread reliable information across multiple language groups. Like Internews, Andrea knows how important it is not just to give information to refugees and migrants – but to give them a chance to talk and ask questions “We want to involve the people themselves in the radio – to give them a voice - let them be heard.”
With Internews’ support, Radio Yalla Yalla will be launched in the next few weeks. With your support, Andrea and We World can hire the extra hands and translators they will need to staff the mini radio outposts, research the information needed to answer questions about logistics, legal matters, finding family, safety and news from home. It’s a crucial step in providing answers – and hope – for those who find themselves stranded here with little of either.
Donate to help get information to migrants and refugees in Italy.
. . .
Author Alison Campbell is Internews Vice President for Global Initiatives.
(Banner image: Migrant tents in Genoa beach, Italy. By Andrea Izzotti)

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